Apple solar projects aid brand: expert

By Lia Zhu in San Francisco (China Daily USA)

Updated: 2015-12-04

Apple's new programs aimed at reducing carbon emissions of its manufacturing partners in China will help improve its brand in the country eventually, according to a senior high tech analyst.

"Apple is thinking to the future of China when more consumers and public officials think about scarcer energy resources or pollution levels," said Patrick Moorhead, the president and principal analyst at Moor Insights and Strategy, a high tech consulting and research firm. "In other words, Apple is thinking ahead."

He said that "overall, this will improve Apple's brand in China but it won't be immediate", he told China Daily.

Apple has recently unveiled a goal of preventing over 20 million metric tons of greenhouse gas pollution in China by 2020, "equivalent to taking nearly 4 million passenger vehicles off the road for one year".

Part of this goal will be contributed by three new solar power plants in North China's Inner Mongolia region, which are expected to be constructed by the end of 2016.

The three solar farms, with a total capacity of 170 megawatts, include a 100-megawatt plant and a 20-megawatt one in Hohhot, the capital of the autonomous region, and another 50-megawatt one in Xilinguole prefecture, according to SunPower Corp, a San Jose, California-based panel manufacturer.

The company entered into joint venture contracts and equity-transfer agreements last month with China's Tianjin Zhonghuan Semiconductor Co and another undisclosed partner to build the three solar power plants.

When completed, the plants will be co-owned by the three parties. SunPower Chief Executive Officer Tom Werner was quoted by Bloomberg in an earlier report that Apple would take an equity stake in these new projects.

Prior to the Inner Mongolia projects, SunPower has partnered with Apple to build two solar power projects totaling 40 megawatts n Southwest China's Sichuan province.

The construction on the two projects has completed, and the solar installations produce more than the total amount of electricity used by Apple's offices and retail stores in China, making Apple's operations carbon neutral in the country, according to the company's statement in late October.

The combined capacity of more than 200 megawatts of the solar projects in China "will produce the equivalent of the energy used by more by than 265,000 Chinese homes in a year and will begin to offset the energy used in Apple's supply chain," the statement said.

"This also helps Apple in the US, where environmentalists and officials are starting to look at the biggest energy users and polluters," Moorhead said. "Apple knows this could put competitive pressure as well."

Apple said it is powering 100 percent of its operations in China and the US and more than 87 percent of its worldwide operations with renewable energy.

Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, called on the company's suppliers, partners and other companies to join the drive of becoming more energy efficient, saying "Climate change is one of the great challenges of our time, and the time for action is now," according to the statement.

Foxconn, the world's largest electronics contract manufacturer, will construct 400 megawatts of solar projects, starting in Henan province, by 2018.

It has committed to generate as much clean energy as its Zhengzhou factory consumes in its final production of the iPhone.

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The Photovoltaic solar plant built by SunPower, a California-based company, in northern part of Chile. The plant, with a maximum output of 70 Megawatts, is one of the world biggest solar plants. Provided to China Daily